Re: One Story Assembly Plant What If?

Posted by Dave Brownell On 2014/6/22 9:02:23

I am sure that if, magically, the Packard worker from either EGB or Conner were transplanted in a modern U.S. auto plant, at least half of what they'd experience would be completely foreign to them. Sure, parts and stuff goes in one door and a new car rolls out another, but the in-between has changed mightily in the past 10-15 years. Most new cars have robots putting them together more than human hands and eyes. While less romantic than the hard and boring labor of old, new cars are put in place in a much more uniform manner. The materials, from zinc coated steel, through aluminum and plastics, to the exotic carbon fibers, are greatly different than sixty years ago. Roof panels and glass are essentially glued in place rather than gasketed and welded. Where there are worker functions, videos and computers are present to check the quality of what's been done. One thing that has remained constant is that manufacturers still expect their products to last about a decade unless special care is taken by the owners. The fact that some Packards are still with us sixty to more than 110 years is tribute to that care more than the quality that was included at their inception.

If you haven't seen the inside of a modern U.S. auto plant in the last ten years, I heartily endorse making a visit. The sights, smells and colors are still exciting. As a size comparison, try the Kentucky Corvette plant and match it up to the Conner plant of 1955-56. Corvettes come off the line in a single 10 hour shift at about 17-20 per hour. Packard averaged about the same, with perhaps 25 at the good times (faster meant more costly corrective fixing would be necessary). Corvettes and Packards combined parts from both inside the plant and external sources, but in very different ways. A.O. Smith made frames for both Packard and Corvettes at external plants; today's alloy frames are made inside the plant by 33 workers and 90 robots. Packard made its own engines and transmissions internally; most Corvette engines are made in Canada (although some are hand-built at the new factory facility). The Corvette plant has a UAW workforce of about a thousand workers while Conner was four times more to make about the same number of cars. The closest Conner got to robots might have been the body welding jigs Briggs used, or the state-of-the-art Utica engine and transmission lines. Both Corvette and Packards were brands even the factory workers could aspire to, although that was usually a painful stretch. I'd also presume workers at both were proud to say that they worked there.